


Satisfied

by languageofthebeasts



Category: Winx Club
Genre: Angst, CSA implied but lightly referenced, Canon Compliant, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Gap Filler, Hamilton Lyrics, Implied Backstory, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Love Triangle, RAI Compliant, Toxic Relationships, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, kind of, lots of these tags are kind of situations, no one is happy, please read at own discretion, the musa/riven is MOSTLY one sided, the trix are one of the unhealthy relationships mentioned earlier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-24 19:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22023550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/languageofthebeasts/pseuds/languageofthebeasts
Summary: "You strike me as a woman who has never been satisfied."The in-between moments of the relationship between Darcy and Riven in Season One.
Relationships: Darcy & Icy & Stormy (Winx Club), Darcy/Riven (Winx Club), Musa/Riven (Winx Club)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51





	Satisfied

Darcy hears the cheering overhead, the laughter, the clink of glasses and the faint music. She tries not to focus on that. Tries to think of the Plan. Of Icy’s plan. She’s not really sure what to look for but she knows she’ll recognize it when she sees it. Not that it matters, Icy’s been going on and on about the plan for at least a week, it’s probably embedded somewhere in her consciousness.

* * *

Darcy lies awake at night listening to Icy’s breaths. It is too cold in the shared room and rain patters on the roof of the tower and she hears distant thunder. It’s going to be a sleepless night, she knows. She stares at the ceiling, pulls the blanket around her tighter, tries to imagine Stormy’s snores are the distant rumblings of thunder lulling her to sleep. Tries to count bats. Tries to list the ingredients from the very illegal love potion she had learned to brew too early in her youth. Tries desperately to just sleep and not _think._

It doesn’t work.

She thinks of maroon hair, strong arms in sleeveless shirts, indigo eyes. She thinks of the heat of the city and the roar of the crowds. Thinks of the rush that came with being in front of the cheering audience that had cheered for _her_. Thinks of pretty boys with anger issues who want a way out.

She thinks about being someone’s release. Being someone’s refuge. Being someone important. Being significant.

She feels vaguely used. Not by Riven, of course, never him. He’s too naïve to be using _her_ of all people. And if anyone’s being manipulative well… She tries not to dwell on that. Tries not to dwell on the fact that she, a grown witch in her own right, is little more than a lackey to her sister. She tries not to think about how she’s letting it happen. But well, if she wants to reap the rewards then she has to sow the seeds. The rewards being unlimited power and the seeds being… Riven in his surprisingly _fragile_ shell.

But it’s fine. She’s dealt with worse. He seems to like her anyway, so she won’t have to resort to anything too drastic. She just has to keep his attention. It is the easiest thing to keep the attentions of boys like him.

She thinks of his groans of pain, the way he had sagged on her shoulder without hesitation, how _trusting_ he was despite his prickly exterior. She wonders what that’s like. She hasn’t felt at ease around the opposite gender since she was too young to even be aware of the differences. But those are memories for… never and all this avoidance of unpleasant topics leaves her little to think about. She turns her mind back to bats and headmistress Griffin’s rules and eventually the darkness takes her.

* * *

Riven is _hungry._

In the way that boys usually are (it hits her in the middle of the night that he really is just a boy), but also in the way that someone who’s been starved their whole life is. She’s pieced together a vague backstory, from the little he willingly reveals. A distant father and a dead mother and a friend group more occupied with their girlfriends and petty issues than anything of _real_ substance. She understands or, rather, she wishes she could understand. But she understands frustration, she understands hunger, she knows what it’s like to be so dissatisfied.

She likes that about him. Feels a sense of kinship. Feels a lot of things about him. She, not for the first time, wonders what life is like on the other side. She brushes it aside, focuses on his face and the tense set of his jaw and the furrowed brow. She runs a thumb over the dent between his brows and smiles the smile she knows will put him at ease.

“I see you.” She says and he looks at her “I understand.”

He seems to collapse forward, tension draining from his posture.

“I know you do.”

_You’re the only one who does._

* * *

Men are _predictable,_ Darcy notes with a sigh. She looks at herself in the mirror, runs the brush through her hair again. It’s not that she dislikes being attractive to men, quite the opposite really. She likes the company. She likes what it can do for her. But it’s _boring_. They want easy and uncomplicated and she can play easy and uncomplicated. She can hold eye contact over cups of too bitter coffee, and she can laugh at jokes that aren’t really jokes and more cries for help.

She’s fairly certain that that simplicity is what Riven sees in her that he doesn’t see with his little fairy friend. It has to be simple for how shallow it is. But he doesn’t know that. He probably doesn’t want to see it.

But it serves her a purpose. It serves her and Icy and Stormy a purpose, and she gets some company out of it _._ Some acknowledgement. Some attention. She had never realized how starved for it she was. She knows that when Riven looks at her with that soft forlorn expression he sees only what she does for him, that she’s nice and pretty and encourages him to do the things he _shouldn’t_ be doing. It’s a role that comes too easily to her and it frustrated her, because this is not who she was meant to be.

She looks back at the mirror, tries to see what he sees and sees a shadow of the woman she really is.

“Getting ready for your date?” Stormy asks from her place in bed.

Darcy puts down the brush “Something like that.”

“Where you meeting the _specialist?”_ Stormy says the word specialist like it’s a dirty word. Darcy can’t blame her.

Darcy shrugs, putting lipstick on “Some bar downtown.”

Stormy looks at her as if expecting more details but Darcy ignores the expectant look and makes to leave.

“Alright, don’t tell me. But Icy will ask.”

Darcy suppresses a shiver “Of course she will.”

* * *

Darcy wonders how Riven really feels about that fairy he always talks about. He mentions her often enough that she knows that she is someone to him. But to what extent? She had (wrongly) assumed it was Bloom that she had to compete with but maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s the other one. The small one. What was her name again? Musa? A fitting name, she supposes. Fairies were always a little too on the nose with their naming. But who was _she_ to talk?

Well, Darcy is willing to admit her mistakes. It wouldn’t be the first time she has had to. But as long as no one else noticed her mistake, as long as Icy didn’t… she wouldn’t mind swallowing her pride this once. What does Icy even know? Everything and nothing all at once, it seems. Icy is painfully difficult to read. Inscrutable, even to Darcy.

And what does Darcy even know about Musa anyway? That she was the fairy of music and that she had those dumb pigtails and that Riven found her affections… distracting. But distracting _how_?

She narrows her eyes, inhales, feels the air around her tense.

Thinks of how the pixie had watched them from the outside of the café, thinks of cornering her. Regrets that she hadn’t been able to crush her like a pest. Thinks of how this time Riven had helped drag her out of that alleyway, how she had been the one to lean against him with _too_ much trust. Wonders if the pixie had seen that.

She exhales.

* * *

Darcy doesn’t really place much value in love. Never has.

She mocks it often enough. Mocks the fairies and their pretty boys in leotards. She believes in it, sure, knows that it makes people do stupid things. Knows about the hormones in the brain and all that. She understands the physiology and psychology of it. And she had read enough romance novels as a young girl. Not that she could ever be that naïve little girl again. But she thinks about it sometimes. Wonders.

She wonders if she has ever been in love. Maybe not if she has to consider it that much. But there were times that she had maybe considered the possibility, but maybe she had just wanted to be in love. The books and songs and poems had never explained what the differences was, and she had always assumed that she would know it when she saw it.

She knows Icy had once loved. A young warlock in the summer after their second year at Cloud Tower. He had been tall, dark, his voice had aged before the rest of him had but Icy had refused to hear any criticism of him. If it had not been love, then it had been the closest thing to love someone like Icy could be capable of.

She denies it vehemently now and even mentioning his name would probably have your nose frozen off and Darcy’s fond enough of her nose to not risk it. Stormy had asked once and had woken up to her pet fish being frozen in its bowl. Darcy remembers the screams the next morning when she had discovered the iced over bowl and remembers how Icy had mentioned something about how the nights were cold and how the windows had probably been left open. Stormy had never been able to prove that Icy had done it and had not dared press the issue any further.

Darcy knows that the pigtailed pixie loves Riven, in the way that young children do. Running away and peeking out from corners and sighing to herself in dark rooms. One night, curled up on the roof of one of Red Fountain’s towers, Riven had told her about how Musa had danced with him once and then had run away from him, Darcy had laughed and held his hand, had promised to stay and dance with him. But even she can’t blame the fairy, she was so young. It made sense. And Darcy is glad she got over that phase in her life before she had come to Cloud Tower.

* * *

The last night he takes her out on his hoverbike is quiet and chilly. The quiet stretches an invisible chasm between them even with her chest against his back. She presses closer, seeking his warmth, leans her head against him and he turns. He looks at her with a fondness that makes her ache, it lights a fire she had long extinguished. 

They park outside the outskirts of Magix and he holds her, and she sighs.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever understand you or your sisters, but you are capable of far far far more than anyone at that school.” He says, taking her face in his hands.

She stares at his lips then back up at his eyes, watches him track the movement like a hunter. She smiles at him, leans her face into one of his hands, relishes in the warmth.

“You’re brilliant, I know you don’t like to show it, but you’re smart. Smarter even than Icy.”

Her eyes widen slightly “Riven,” her tone is half scolding half fond.

“I’m only telling the truth. You control, what, darkness? Illusions? You can do anything you put your mind to. And what does she have? Ice? A little snow?”

She lets herself laugh, what Icy didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

He smirks at her then, boyishly arrogant “and you clearly have the superior taste since you’re here with me.”

He kisses her. It’s soft. The trees are quiet, and she can hear his heart from here. There are no voices. No clinking glasses.

She doesn’t have the heart to pull away from him.

“You’re like me, I’m never satisfied.”

* * *

The next time he looks at her, with utter betrayal and shock, is almost endearing. The way his hands tremble and shake around his sword and the way his eyes seem to glisten in the half-light should be satisfying to her. He watches her slink off the table and jumps when he feels her hand on his back. She tells him the plan and his part in it, and she feels his body tremble like she had countless times before. She smiles the smile she knows he had come to love and the smile she knows he will come to hate.

Stormy and Icy surround him too, and he turns, eyes darting around the room for a way out. Darcy laughs, high and shrill the way Icy’s laughs always are, and she takes pity on him then. Sends him to the dungeons but not before she takes note of the disappointment in Icy’s expression.

With his disappearance there is an uneasy quiet in the room as Icy proceeds to the projections of the three great schools. Stormy hesitates, making eye contact with Darcy, before joining Icy at the projection. Darcy exhales, tries to still her hands. Everything is going according to plan. She has no reason to panic.

* * *

Standing before her army, she should feel powerful. She alone controls this army of darkness even if she herself served Icy. She has the Dragon Flame. She controls Cloud Tower. Red Fountain had crumbled before her. She has everything and nothing.

She croons at the army, and they say nothing back to her. They weren’t supposed to, it isn’t like she could give them a life outside of this crawling writhing horde of limbs. She has never had control over life. But life wasn’t part of the plan, nothing had happened that hadn’t gone precisely according to the plan. Icy’s plan.

She wonders where the plan ends, and her heart begins.

* * *

The way he looks at her when he enters with the freed prisoners is unreadable. Even with the telepathic connection Darcy just feels pain, loss, anger, pain but none of it is new. There is nothing to share now between them, just his pain and the fact that she mourns the loss. She considers breaking the connection, it feels like the right thing to do, the _nice_ thing to do. It’s what she would have done if she were the witch Riven thought she was.

But she isn’t.

She isn’t any of the things he had thought she was even though she wishes she was. Even though she mourns the loss of the almost something they had had. If she were she would say something to him, telepathically, verbally. She catches his eye, tries to smile, and he flinches as if he were struck and so Darcy lets the moment die.

* * *

Light Rock is… boring. Initial unpleasantness aside, it’s just. Endless light and endless positivity. The light, she isn’t a fan of, and she is endlessly grateful for the trees that provide refuge from the never ending sunlight. But the positivity is something else entirely.

It doesn’t anger Darcy the way it angers Icy and it doesn’t bother her the way it does Stormy. But it gives her too much time to think and not enough to think about. She could think about her mother, she could think of how she spent her girlhood terrified of men, she could think of her unlimited potential and her litany of mistakes, she could think of boys with maroon hair and indigo eyes and stupid sleeveless white shirts, she could mourn the loss at last.

She spends too much time now thinking about boys. It’s the only form of entertainment they are allowed to have: sappy love stories with no real substance that have more in common with the novels she had once read as a young girl. She watches the projections hold hands, watches the woman stroke her lover’s face and tries not to think of Riven.

Tries not to think of the type of witch he had seen in her months ago. It had only been months hadn’t it? It feels like infinity. Endless space between then and now. Tries not to think about lost potential. Tries not to grieve over something that had almost been. A child not carried to term. A project abandoned before it had been completed. A sappy romance novel opened but never read, collecting dust.

Light Rock has made her complacent. She’s sure she’s liable to crumble to its influence if left here any longer, in fact she knows it. Part of her wants to. Part of her thinks that maybe life would be easier, simpler if she just let herself be what they were making her out to be. Anger has not seized her the way it has her sisters, and she’s sure she could find some modicum of satisfaction in the life this prison has promised.

**Author's Note:**

> "You strike me as a woman who has never been satisfied" and "You're like me, I'm never satisfied" come from the song Satisfied from Hamilton: An American Musical by Lin Manuel Miranda
> 
> This should be mostly canon compliant but I stopped watching mid season 5 and I refused to watch beyond that point so I really don't know if anything new has been added. 
> 
> I wrote this mostly because I always felt there was more going on between them than what we saw on the show and always wished there was more so... this fic happened.


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